Twin Wrangler's Tales

It’s been soggier ‘n a Saint Bernard’s tongue here this spring, but we’re far from grumblin’ ‘bout it since our winter snow pack was less than half of what we normally get here in the northwest corner of the state.

When the snow melted an’ the ice over the ranch streams thawed we realized the ranch was goin’ to be in big trouble if the spring rains didn’t materialize. Though it was lookin’ mighty grim early in the spring Mother Nature must have taken pity on us, for we had a cold, wet May an’ first part of June. Though we have to admit that we’d enjoy a dry day ever so often, we’re not complainin’.

We know that one of these days it will end, the pastures will dry, the danger for forest wildfires will spike from low to extremely high, an’ the water flow in the cricks will drop.

While city folks praise the hot an’ dry summer sun, we, along with other farmers an’ ranchers will once again pray for dark clouds to deliver us much needed moisture.

With out it, pasture grasses would wither – leavin’ not enough forage to feed our livestock let alone fill a grasshopper’s belly. Next the ranch waterin’ holes would go dry, turnin’ into mud bogs then bowls of cracked earth an’ dust.

An then there’s the flowers. No rain, no flowers. No flowers no pollen. Without pollen, there would be no honey. Bees would soon vanish. Without bees there would be few crops an’ we would soon be a nation of mighty hungry people.

Doesn’t it make you wonder just how long it would be before city dwellers would begin to revere rain as much as we country folks do?

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Horses have been a part of who we are for…well, our entire lives. We were born in the “year of the horse” an’ for some reason we’ve always experienced an innately passionate connection to horses. We could not exist with out ‘em.

Over the 48 odd years we’ve owned horses – 36 of those years were spent breedin’ an’ raisin’ Appaloosas – with a production record of somethin’ close to 50 foals. While we do not consider ourselves to be horse whisperers we do feel that we’ve done a better ‘n middlin’ job of trainin’ a good many horses.

However, our method of trainin’ horses is a might on the sluggish side. Fact is, we train horses so darn slow that you just might begin to think that we must be wearin’ hobbles!

But actually we spend a lot of time on ground work an’ take our cues from each individual horse when it’s the right time to advance to the next stage in training. You see, to be a good horse trainer, we believe we must also be good students - pupils of the horse.

This requires us to open our minds while we are workin’ with a horse. We listen, lettin’ the horse speak to us…not as we humans communicate, but rather the way horses speak to one another – the cock of an ear, the stiffness or suppleness of his neck or the softness of his eye. It is much like a whisper, a horse’s whisper.

The above design can be purchased from us at http://www.mirrorkbranch.com/gallery8.html

 

 

In our last post we spoke ’bout sort of bein’ on the fence, over fences.  Well, we thought we’d like to expand on the barriers we humans make an’ wonder if we wouldn’t be happier if we’d allow ourselves the freedom to range more, not only phyiscally but also mentally.

 You would think that there were enough barriers on this place as it is, yet we have plans to build another one.  The 65 acres of timber on the west ridge has enough grass to feed the cows for part of the summer so we’re thinkin’ we need to build a buck fence up there.  We’ll then put in portable cattle guards at either end of the narrow dirt road that wanders through the ranch along the base of the ridge so’s we can keep the livestock from trailin’ out to the highway or off into thousands of acres of forest land.

All these fences we have here on the ranch are specifically made to keep somethin’ in or perhaps someone out.  For what ever reason they exist, we sure do spend a lot of time buildin’ an’ mendin’ ‘em.  

Of course not all barriers are real.  We often build imaginary ones that simply limit our range of what we think that we can and can’t do.  With thinkin’ like that people eventually end up crowded together, as if they don’t belong outside the fences they’ve created in their minds. 

 It gets to where folks don’t even know where they’re goin’.  They just drift along with the herd, then’ wonder how the heck they got there an’ even more so, why they’re bunched up among folks they wouldn’t normally want to be corralled with.  

Maybe folks could learn somethin’ from some of the more individualistic cows we have on our range.  No matter how strong we build the barriers to keep the cows where we think they should be, there are always a few fence crawlers who choose to go their own way.

Life’s too short, so today we challenge you to crawl that fence that you’ve mentally created for yourself.  Beyond that barrier an adventure awaits you!

“Give us land, lots of land, ‘neath the starry skies above

Don’t fence us in

Let us ride through the wide open country that we love

Don’t fence us in”

Now that bein’ said, ya might say we’re sort of sittin’ on the fence.  We really would love to be able to go back an’ live in the past when there were no fences to restrict you from where you wanted to go, an’ a rancher could range thousands of cows from here to yonder. 

But, unfortunately, not only is it impossible in this day an’ age to ranch without fences, we depend on our fences…or at least the neighbor’s fences  to keep our stock from driftin’  south to Texas. 

Interestin’ly, before ranches began fencin’ their cattle in,  long stretches of barbed wire ”drift fences” were originally constructed to mearly control “cattle drift”.   These fences were intended to prevent the cattle from migratin’ or pushed south out of their home range due winter storms.

So anyway, spring has arrived in Montana  an’ this means you’ll likely find us in our ol’ beat up hats an’ a pair of wore out jeans mendin’ fences of one sort or another; e.g. barbless wire, post an’ rail as well as ”silk” the fence that tamed the west - better known as barbed wire, or bob-wire.

No matter how solidly built our fences start out – years of sun, rain, an’ snow, as well as falling trees an’ fence crawlers (of both the domestic an’ wild sort) – the wires soon begin to sag an’ droop, draggin’ the ground like a handful of catch ropes that have failed to reach their targets.

One might think that there isn’t much to fixin’ or buildin’ a fence, but actually it requires a fair bit of know how an’ a willingness to spend hours on a job that entails a body to splice, stretch, pull, twist, yank, chop, pound, tamp, drive, drill, jostle, force, push, spit, an’ once in a while even let loose with a string of four letter words.

All in all, we enjoy it. Though we are rather small – short for tall an’ slight for brawn, we prefer hands on physical tasks that take more muscle than brain power. In the early years we can remember helpin’ dad while he worked out on a fence line buildin’ a pasture for the horses. Likely at the time, we were more in his way than bein’ of any real assistance, but we eventually grew into the work an’ finally took over the job.

Now we have to admit that at the age of 85 years, we’re dadgum sure that dad could still better us in puttin’ in an arrow straight line of fence. Our fences on the other hand show a great deal of character driftin’ back an’ forth,  so’s the posts stand as crooked as a snake’s trail. 

“Just turn us loose, let us straddle our old saddles

Underneath the western skies.

On our Appaloosas, let us wander over yonder

Till we see the mountains rise

We want to ride to the ridge where the west commences

gaze at the moon till we lose our senses

For we don’t like cities and we can’t stand fences

Don’t fence us in.”

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Recently its been a challenge locatin’ all of the eggs that our chickens have laid. Though our chickens aren’t eggs-actly free range we have a fairly large ”yard” for them to enjoy.

Their yard is situated between two wings of storage stalls from what used to be our indoor ridin’ arena that sported wings of horse stalls runnin’ down its length on each side. Unfortunately durin’ the hard winter of ‘96 the roof of the barn collapsed under an immense load of snow.  Note: Though we’d had a sick horse in one of the stalls earlier that very day, luckily all of the horses were out to pasture at the time the roof caved in.

 As we no longer raise foals or need to lay up a horse in a stall (due to sickness or injury) most of our old horse stalls have been converted into storage spaces for various ranch equipment such as, the antique Concord Run-about buggy and dismantled round bale hay feeders, as well as stored hay an’ straw. 

 One stall we transformed into a chicken coop, an’ used former horse wall feeders filled with straw for nest boxes. We then put in a fence at both ends of the two rows of stalls, makin’ the chickens  a fair sized yard. 

Cousin Tim holds Dusty the Golden Sex Link hen - in front of the horse stall converted into a chicken coop

 

This all worked out fine for a while…. that is ‘til recently.  For some reason the chickens have begun to snub our fancy horse feeder layin’ boxes in preference to layin’ their eggs in various locations amongst the stored equipment which included the stacked four by eight foot bales of hay.

 For several days when we went to fork hay onto the tractor to feed out to the horses an’ cows, Sage, our English Shepherd would insist that we check behind the hay for the eggs.  We knew she was right, there most definitely was a nest with eggs there….but the space between the hay an’ the back wall was much too narrow an’ we just weren’t long armed enough to stretch the needed distance to reach ‘em.  So, while we worked at forkin’ the hay onto the tractor, Sage would stuff her nose into the narrow gap, whimperin’ as she strove to follow her nose with the rest of her body into the constricted space. Time an’ again we’d have to call her out for fear that she’d end up gettin’ stuck.

 Yesterday we finally fed out enough of the hay to be able to gain access to nest of eggs.  To keep ‘em out of harms way we collected the eggs an’ placed ‘em in a safe spot on the ground some distance out of the way of our work.

 When we were ‘bout ready to head off with our tractor load of hay to feed out to the horses waitin’ in the south pasture, we noticed that one egg was missin’ an’ so was Sage. That little rascal had gone an’ stolen an egg!

 As we drove the tractor through the barnyard we spotted Sage, her nose covered with dirt, comin’ out of the cow pen.  Aha, she’d buried it! But how the heck would we be able to find it, an’ what condition would it be in even if we happened to be lucky enough to recover it?

 Well, after we finished our feedin’ chores we collected the rest of the eggs from where we’d put ‘em, then with Sage followin’ close behind we walked out into the cow pen an’ asked her, “Where’s the egg?”

 At first Sage headed toward a spot which we knew she’d previously buried a bone, but then she veered off an’ strolled a few more feet farther into the pen where she began sniffin’ at the ground.  Takin’ the cue from Sage we began to dig as though we were uncoverin’ a land mine…gently sweepin’ the dirt away. Under an inch of soil an’ dried up cow pies we soon found the egg, surprisingly without even a slight crack in it’s shell! 

While most of the rest of the country battled a hard winter, here in the northwest corner of Montana it was so mild that we barely noticed it. In fact spring has arrived at the Mirror KB more than a month ahead of schedule, but we’re not really grumblin’ as it was also calvin’ time.

Usually we don’t try to breed our cows for February calves, but last May it proved futile to keep our bull, Sota, contained in the corral. As soon as the cows had calved in April, he was bound an’ determined to once again “bond” with his gals.

He broke through a fortress of a 6 foot high post an’ rail corral fence that was also lined all the way around with pipe panel fencing on the inside. Still he broke out twice, both times twistin’ pipe panels into pretzels an’ snappin’ the outer lodgepole rails into pieces.

After the second break-out we realized that it was pointless to keep repairin’ the corral only to put the bull back in it for half a day – or less, so we decided that we’d just have to be prepared for early calves come 2010….an’ thus it was, our first calf - a black baldy bull, hit the ground somewhere ’round the 6th of February.  Then came a solid black heifer that we named Muxy, in reference to all the mud we’d been sloggin’ through the past couple of weeks.

Our newest an’ last calf was born yesterday evenin’ ’round 5:00 pm while we were busy takin’ care of our evenin’ feedin’ chores. Grand ol’ Lady the only purebred Herford cow on the spred produced a fine lookin’ black baldy bull calf.

This mornin’ we found that the pasture cows – mostly young stuff from last spring’s calvin’ – had broken out of their field an’ were all crowded ’round the calvin’ corral.  We went ahead an’ fed out hay in the horse pastures then put hay out in the empty cow pasture.  While we fed hay to the mama cows in the corral, we set our two dogs on the job of roundin’ up the loose cattle an’ herdin’ ‘em back to the pasture…an’ we’re proud to say that they did a pretty fair job of the task considerin’ we were too busy to give ‘em any help. An’ we could see it in the dog’s eyes an’ the way they smiled up at us when then came back to where we worked, that they were beamin’ with pride.

Once the dogs had the cows put back in the pasture an’ we had finished feedin’ the mama cows we worked at fixin’ the fence where the pastured cows had broken through.

Considerin’ how much fun the two dogs have chasin’ the cows, both Sage an’ Otter can show tender moments when they’re around the young calves.

Here Sage gives Muxy a kiss

Otter goes nose to nose with the newest calf.

Though we have other options, we’ve pretty much decided that the newest bull calf will become our replacement bull, so we’re tryin’ to come up with a good name for him….somethin’ like – GamBull or RemarkaBull. Then again we might should call him TrouBull if he takes after Sota. If that proves true we’ll rename him Noble, that is NoBull.

That’s what it’s been like here for over two weeks. We still have a scant trace of snow on the ground, but generally speakin’ it’s ice, or bare ground. There is a harshness to the landscape, a monotonous mix of mud, ice, and an abundance of horse manure an’ cow pies….dingy, drab an’ ugly.

While we know that mother nature is beautiful in all seasons, right now we’re havin’ trouble seein’ anything but an unpleasant grunginess ever which way we look. So the other day, in a quest to find some sort of natural resplendence we decided to take our cameras in hand an’ headed out across the pastures an’ down to the Fisher River.

It wasn’t easy to look past the anemic landscape, as everything appeared dull an’ unattractive to our eyes. As we sauntered through the fields we kept puttin’ our cameras up to our eyes – sort of searchin’ through our lenses for somethin’ worthy to catch in a moment of time. Repeatedly we’d zoom in an’ framed a shot only to begrudgingly pass on punchin’ the button to release the shutter.

Though we couldn’t find anything exceptionally appealin’ to our eyes, we realized that solitude encompassed us with a certain peacefulness that embraces a sort of beauty all it’s own.

Once the feelin’ of beauty bloomed within us our eyes began to see things differently. And we soon found ourselves snappin’ the shutter release on our cameras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An autumn leaf restin’ on a river rock encased with ice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raindrops cling to spruce needles an’ a single strand of moss.

As Kari zoomed in an’ focused on another glint of light, a supposed raindrop, a special treasure loomed in the camera lens. Instead of a water droplet the glint that caught Kari’s eye was the lure on a fisherman’s forgotten spinning rod leanin’ up against  some river brush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before we headed for home we captured a few more images, this time of the dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sage poses on a fallen cottonwood tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Otter can’t figure out how to get up on the huge log. Oh well, he’s cute when he’s stumped!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay guys, time to head back to the house.

Though wolves have been sighted in the area as well as here on our ranch, we rarely are treated to the haunting songs composed by wolves….but one night not too long ago we lay in bed – our ear’s perked to the eerie call of a lone wolf. As hauntingly eerie as the call of a wolf is, it is also one of the most mysteriously beautiful sounds in nature.

When compared to the call of the wolf – in our opinion – the coyote just doesn’t quite measure up. While they have a variety of calls, the vocalization of coyotes tends to be somewhat coarse when compared to the wolf. Coyotes yip, yelp, bark, an’ howl – often mixin’ ‘em all together to create a reverberatin’ crescendo of, noise.

We have a small pack of three coyotes that have staked out our ranch. Unlike coyotes who generally hunt as individual in areas where there is a plentiful number of rodents (prairie dogs, gophers, field mice, an’ rabbits) to prey on, these coyotes work together as a pack in order better defend food caches from other prey animals as well as to bring down their own kills such as, deer.

This winter the coyotes have become quite intent on takin’ on our two dogs. Each mornin’ when we head out to take care of our ranch feedin’ chores we generally spot the coyotes out in the east pasture.

Intently they watch our dogs, an’ often the alpha coyote creeps in close if Otter wanders out into the pasture. The other two coyotes usually hang farther back, yet seem poised to join in an attack if the alpha member makes his move.

When we take a load of hay off to the horses in the south pasture, the coyotes shadow us – through the pump house pasture as they stay close to the ranch stream an’ alders for concealment. Then while we feed out the hay to the horses, the trio suddenly re-materialize, an’ the alpha once again stalks our dogs.

Sage, the English Shepherd rides in the tractor bucket with the hay, so Otter is their main target.

One mornin’, the leader crept in close, his posture low an’ ready to attack Otter if he wandered too far away from the tractor. Our own menacin’ growls an’ war whoops had no effect on the coyote, but it sure stirred up the horses who left their piles of hay to group nervously together. Then the entire herd of horses crowed around our tractor like hornets at a picnic lunch. Only then did the coyote back off.

Today it appeared as though the scenario was goin’ to be a repeat of the same. The coyotes had taken up their positions.  Once again the alpha coyote was on point with the other two pack members takin’ up offensive positions.

However, this time while Kim busily doled out the hay Kari kept an eye on the pack leader in case it made an attack on Otter. It had crept to within’ 30 feet of us an’ was lookin’ as though it was ’bout to make a bold move when suddenly the call of a lonesome wolf burst from Kari’s lungs.

From our past experience we’d learned that growls, yells an’ war whoops had no effect on the coyotes, but when Kari let out that single lonesome howl, the coyotes suddenly turned tail an’ skedaddled toward the cover of the stream bed.

Still, we found that they don’t give up all that easily for moments later, while we forked more hay into the tractor bucket for the cows we spotted the three devils hunkered down once again in the east pasture. They’d shadowed us back an’ were waiting for another chance.

 Watch Out!   Here one comes!!!

The month of December charged in like a polar bear an’ bit northwest Montana with bitter sub zero degree temperatures. Twice it dropped down to minus twelve (not wind chill, but real temps) an’ we were lucky if the high for the day would rise above zero mark.

During the bitter weather we found the tractor refusin’ to kick to life an’ have determined that the in-line heater isn’t workin’ as it should so will have to replace it before we get hit by another round of last week’s polar temperatures.

Though neither of us have a doctorate in farm machinery repair, we were feelin’ pretty certain that we could figure out how to replace the wore out in-line heater. It looked rather simple. All we’d have to do is remove the two clamps on each side of the in-line heater, pull out the defunct piece an’ insert a new one. How hard could that be?

Well, the other day we decided that before we buy a new in-line heater that we’d better take the old one out so’s we could measure it to be sure to purchase the right size. Fair enough, we’ll just perform exploratory surgery on the tractor, measure the heater then replace it’ again ‘till we have a chance to purchase a new one in town.

All was goin’ as expected. The two clamps that held the in-line heater gizmo in place were rather easy to loosen. But a light tug at the hoses didn’t accomplish much so we gave it a little more muscle.

Ahh, that did it! But just then all h*ll, ‘er all anti-freeze broke loose. The moment the radiator hose an’ the in-line heater parted ways, the now open line was gushin’  out a yellowish green flow of vital fluids!

Nurse! A clamp – a clamp please an’ hurry!!! Glancin’ ‘round we realized that we had no nurse or a clamp handy so we quickly reconnected the two pieces.

Dadgum, this job is a tad bit trickier ‘n we thought. An’ now we’re goin’ to have to give the ol’ tractor a transfusion to boot! But we’d might as well hold off on that, as we still hadn’t assessed the inside diameter of the radiator hose. Looks like we’re goin’ to have to pull the two pieces apart once again. But this time we were ready for the flood.

This time as we pulled the hose from the heater gizmo, we tipped the end of each piece toward the sky an’ held ‘em that way while we got our needed measurement. Unfortunately farm equipment is rarely built for ease of maintenance, or repair, so this was easier said than done. But after a bit of squirmin’ ‘round an’ as more radiator fluid pooled at our feet, we did manage to get some sort of a measurement…..But to be honest, we’re not all that confident that we’ll end up with the right sized gizmo when we head into town next week. It’s likely we’ll have to perform this surgical procedure a couple more times.  Reckon we better make sure we have a good supply of Prestone on hand too.

Well, since Christmas is ridin’ in real quick….before we round this up an’ head out of here, we want to wish you a splendid holiday season. 

From the Twin Wranglers an’ all the critters here at the Mirror KB ranch.

Rifle season for the big game hunters closed the last Sunday of November.   There were a few less hunters out lookin’ for game, but the forest road still had an above normal amount of traffic on it, as did the forest road on east side of the river.  Though we didn’t hear many guns soundin’ off so doubt many of the hunters went home successful.

Early in the afternoon we spotted two “orange”  men sittin’ in chairs on a cliff lookin’ down over the river. At first we just figured that they had stopped there to enjoy a bite of lunch, but two hours wore by an’ they were still there.  What bothered us was the fact that where they were sittin’ we could tell that they had their sites on deer that would traverse through our ranch to the river.  That sort of irked us since we hadn’t given these fellas permission to hunt on our ranch.

After watchin’ ‘em for a spell we  couldn’t take it any longer so pulled on our orange sweatshirts an’ headed off for a casual hike southward then east toward the river an’ the southeast corner of the ranch.  Our trek first took us through the open fields of our south an’ southeast pastures where we know for certain the hunters were eyeballin’ us – probably wonderin’ what we were up to.

Once we’d made it to the river riprap we turned south then crossed a small stream then disappeared into a dense growth of river alder.  At this point we were a tad bit nervous . We hoped that there were no deer bedded down in the shelter of the trees for if there were we an’ the dogs would surely spook ‘em out from their cover an’ probably right to the two hunters who were perched up on the bluff overlookin’ the river.  Also we were a little fearful for our own safety an’ were hopin’ that the they weren’t the trigger happy sort that would shoot at anything that “might” be game.

Turnin’ east we worked our way through the alder to the river.  From there we could see the hunters staring down at us from above.  We gave ‘em each a casual wave an’ headed on up the river in front of ‘em, stoppin’ now an’ again to check out an interestin’ lookin’ river rock or piece of driftwood.  The hunters were still there when we looked back behind us, so we turned an’ headed back west into a grove of cottonwood an’ alder trees.  While  searchin’ for an easy trail to work our way through the thick growth of trees we could here what sounded like an engin of a truck comin’ to life so we wound our way back out of the woods to see if our huntin’ buddies were still there. They weren’t.   Gee, sorry guys…did we ruin your hunt?

Of what we have heard, many hunters didn’t fill their tags this year.   Evidentyly the deer harvest was way down, though the elk hunters faired a little better.  Due to many of the hunters’ freezers endin’ up empty we have been gettin’ a fair number of calls for our grass fed beef.

This next week we’ll have two yearlin’ heifers butchered an’ as it now stands we’ve got all but one quarter of the two heifers spoken for.  Several other folks have also purchased 25 or more pounds of hamburger from us over the past couple of weeks.  So it seems that a poor harvest of wild game means a good season for us in the sales of beef.

The above photo is the December image from our new On the Cow Path 2010 calendar.